


Nightmares

by miss_grey



Series: What We Do In The Dark [17]
Category: Band of Brothers
Genre: Angst, Hurt No Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, hunter carwood lipton, hunter dick winters, supernaural au - Freeform, vampire nix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-16
Updated: 2019-06-16
Packaged: 2020-05-12 18:28:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19234693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_grey/pseuds/miss_grey
Summary: Dick and Nix both have to deal with the fallout of Dick's decision.





	Nightmares

**Author's Note:**

> I'm so sorry in advance.

 

 

Nix tossed and turned for hours.  Even after the sun had broken the horizon (he could feel it) he was still awake, still anxious, still upset.  The night before he’d squirmed with tension—unresolved because Lipton had arrived just when things had gotten real good.  It had tormented Nix after, but in a good, simmering way, a promise for more.  He’d basked in the knowledge of what Dick felt like under his hands, what his eyes looked like when he wanted Nix.  He drowned in the taste and scent of Dick Winters.  It was so much better than he could’ve imagined, so much more satisfying and overwhelming and utterly devastating in potential.  When he’d fallen asleep, finally, he’d dreamt what more might feel like.

Now…well.  Now, those same sensations haunted him and kept him awake.

Dick said he wanted to be friends, but that’s not what it had sounded like to Nix.  It had sounded like Dick wanted the same thing that Nix wanted, but was afraid.  Afraid maybe of himself—of losing control like he had the night before.  Afraid of Nix.

Nix growled and pressed his face into the pillow.  Dick was afraid of him—afraid of what he wanted.  Afraid of the blood.  Nix didn’t know what to do about that, was afraid there might not be anything he could do.  As much as he tried to be a good person, he couldn’t change the essential nature of what he was, now.  He needed blood to survive, and he had to get it from somewhere.  Nix thought it was a giant fucking joke that whatever supernatural biology he’d fallen victim to just so happened to make the object of his affections smell so much better, more appetizing than anyone or anything else.  So, when Dick had asked for honesty, Nix had given it to him.  Yes, he wanted Dick’s blood.  He always did.  It was a constant craving, an incessant prodding at the back of his mind.  He could smell the hunter everywhere—in the air, on the sheets, on Nix’s own skin.  And yes, he wanted.  God, he wanted.  He wanted to sink his teeth in deep and drown himself in the taste, in the scent, in the sensation of Dick Winters.  But.  But he didn’t.  And he wouldn’t.  Dick didn’t want that.  And that…that mattered to Nix.

He thought he might’ve been able to explain that, but now he was afraid he’d fucked everything up.  It’d happened too fast, maybe.  Nix hadn’t meant to do what he’d done—confronting Dick at the bathroom door like that, but he’d felt an overwhelming need—it had tugged at his blood, pulled him to where he could hear Dick’s soft, panting breaths, the sound of flesh against flesh, Dick’s weak cries of pleasure, the way he’d moaned Nix’s name.  His feet had led him to the door and he’d felt powerless against it.  He might have eventually gotten control of himself again, but then Dick had touched him, and he’d lost his hold.

Maybe Dick was right.  Maybe he _couldn’t_ trust himself around Nix in that way.  Maybe the desire was just too strong, and the best thing to do was deny it altogether.

Maybe they could find a way to just be friends.  Maybe Nix could pretend he wasn’t in love with him.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Lip crept in the front door at 6:45 in the morning, doing his best to be quiet.  He needn’t have bothered.  Dick sat in the kitchen, coffee clutched between pale hands, exhausted, but unable to sleep. Dick had tried to sleep for a couple hours, but he’d eventually given up.  So now he sat here, nursing his second cup of coffee, and smiled at Lip as his friend peeked his head around the corner.  “Oh,” Lip said, “You’re up.  I figured you’d be asleep—you’ve been sleeping in ‘til the midafternoon lately.”

“Yeah,” Dick said.  “Couldn’t sleep.”  He took a sip of coffee.  “How was your date?”  He quirked a brow.  “Good, I guess?”

Lip fought back a blush.  “Yeah.  Good.”

Dick nodded.  “I’m happy for you, Lip.”

“Thanks.”  Lip poured himself a cup of coffee then sat at the table.  “How was the hunt?”

“The hunt went fine.  Just one ghoul.  We handled it easily.”

Lip frowned.  “And the rest?”

Dick sighed.  He knew he wouldn’t be able to dodge Lip.  “Okay, I guess.  Harry and Nix met, and they seemed to get along okay.”

“Hmmm,” Lip murmured, “So then why do you look like someone kicked your puppy?”

Dick frowned at his friend.  “It’s complicated.”

Lip nodded.  “I bet.”

Dick shook his head.  “It’s crazy, right?”  He asked.  “This whole…thing…with Nix?  It’s crazy.”

Lip shrugged.  “Well…yeah.  But…so are lots of things, Dick.  I mean…it’s crazy that you and I hunt monsters for a living too, but we still do it.”

“But that’s what I’m saying, Lip!  You and I hunt monsters for a living.  And Nix…Nix is a vampire.”

Lip sighed.  “That doesn’t make him a monster, Dick.  You know that just like I do.”

Dick bowed his head over his coffee, feeling just as torn as he had the night before.  “Yeah.”  He said, because maybe Lip was right.  Maybe it was as simple as that.  Maybe _Nix_ was what mattered.  Nix the person, not Nix the vampire.  But…well…maybe Nix wasn’t the problem at all.  Maybe it was Dick.  Maybe Nix could handle it, but Dick couldn’t.  Maybe Dick didn’t feel comfortable dealing in _maybes_ anymore.  Maybe Dick should've kept his hands to himself and never kissed Nix.

 

 

* * *

 

 

_Nix tossed and turned, his sleep fragile and thin, grasping at him over and over.  Nightmares swirled up around him whenever he rose too close to consciousness, and they tugged him back down into the darkness._

_He dreamt of the trenches—of thick mud sucking at his boots, pulling him down, making him slow and heavy and weak.  Too weak to get to the others, too slow to help them.  His voice broke on him, and he couldn’t form words to warn them, to shout to them to take cover!  A voice babbled at him through the telephone, but he couldn’t understand a single word, and when he tried to explain, he found he’d gone mute._

_He dreamt of gold and glitter, the opulence of his parents’ mansion, decked out for the party—champagne flowing, girls laughing, the trumpets singing a swinging beat in the background.  Nix tugged a young woman up to his bedroom, laughing, cajoling, then he spread her out on his bed, and he lay down with her, and he drank her up ‘til there was nothing left._

_He dreamt of a thick, wonderful scent surrounding him, so good, so tantalizing.  He followed it, until he found its source.  A warm throat, bared for him.  He ran his lips over it delicately before he bared his fangs and sank them deep.  The best thing Nix had ever tasted, warm rich blood, pulsed over his tongue, and he felt immediately drunk, but also like he could never get enough.  He drank and drank and drank.  And when he pulled back, Dick Winters lay dead below him._

_Nix whimpered in his sleep and tried to wake, tried to escape what he was seeing, but the impossible grip of the sun kept him down in the darkness._

_He dreamt that Dick stood before him, machete in hand.  “This is what happens to monsters,” Dick said, before he hacked the head off the ghoul.  “Are you paying attention, Lew?”  Nix flinched at the name, and at the dark, foul blood.  Dick swung the machete one more time, and Nix imagined what the blade might feel like.  He imagined himself swinging it, too._

_He dreamt he was in the trenches again.  Over and over and over again._

_Nix never could seem to find his way out._

 

 

* * *

 

 

The floorboard creaked and Dick glanced up to find Nix standing awkwardly in the kitchen doorway but obviously trying not to appear awkward.  He ran a hand through his messy black hair.  “Hey, Red,” he croaked.

“Hey,” Dick said.  Nix entered the kitchen and went to the fridge to retrieve a bottle of blood.  When Nix turned, Dick noticed that he looked paler than usual and his hand seemed to tremble where it gripped the bottle.  His eyes were bloodshot.  Dick frowned.  “You okay, Nix?”  He stood from his seat and reached out for Nix, but the vampire took a single step back.

Nix forced a smile.  “I’m fine, Dick.”  He said.  He skirted the room and went to sit on the other side of the table. 

Dick frowned.  “You don’t look fine.”

“I love it when you sweet talk me,” Nix quipped, flashing that same fake grin.

“I’m serious, Nix.  What’s wrong?”

Nix took a deep gulp of the blood and shook his head.  “Just had a rough night is all.”

Dick nodded.  “Was it…uh….  You know.”

And Nix must have known that he was talking about their late-night conversation, because he shook his head.  “No.  Nothing like that.”

“What, then?”

Nix shrugged and turned his gaze away, obviously embarrassed.  “I still dream about the War sometimes.”

Dick’s brows pulled together in concern.  “Really?”

“Yeah, sometimes.”  He took another deep drink.  “It doesn’t happen often, but it’s usually pretty bad when it does.”

Dick reached out toward Nix, but then seemed to think better of it and let his hand drop back to the table.  “Is there a reason for when it happens?”

Nix shrugged a single shoulder.  “Sure.  If anything reminds me too closely of it.  Or sometimes violence.”  Nix smirked weakly.  “I told you I’m not much of a fighter.”

Dick thought about it for a second, then he felt his heart clench.  “The hunt.”  Nix stared at him, then took another deep drink of the blood.  “The hunt triggered your PTSD.”  Nix didn’t deny it.  Dick huffed.  “Why didn’t you say something, Nix?  We didn’t have to go.  Harry could’ve gotten other backup.  I wouldn’t have asked you to go if I knew it’d do this to you.”

Nix waved his concern away.  “I’m fine, Dick.  You said your friend needed help.  I wanted to help.  And anyway, it’s just some nightmares.  I can deal with nightmares.”

“Well, I’m sorry.”  Dick said.  “I didn’t think.”

“Don’t worry about it, Red,” Nix said, finishing his bottle.  He rose to get another.  “How are you?  You don’t look like you got much sleep either.  Anything interesting happen while I was out?”

Dick watched him cross the room to the fridge, watched his trembling hands as he twisted the top off a second bottle.  “I’m good,” Dick lied.  “And everything has been quiet.  No demons, no vampires, nothing.”

Nix nodded.  “That’s good.”  He swallowed half the bottle before pausing.  “Good.”  He shuffled from foot to foot nervously.  “Maybe I should be headed back to Jersey.”

Dick frowned.  He should’ve expected this.  “You don’t have to go, Nix.  Look, about last night….”

“You don’t have to say anything, Dick.  I get it.  And I’m not mad.  I just….”  He sighed and slumped down into the chair across from the hunter.  “Look.  I’m trying to figure out how to do this.  I just… think I might need some time to get myself together.”

Dick swallowed thickly.  “I understand,” he said.  “But I just…I don’t want you to leave this way.  Not while things feel so…unsteady.  I know it’s selfish of me, Nix, but will you please stay a couple more days?  Just…until things feel normal again?”

Nix stared at Dick from across the table, his dark eyes filled with something that Dick couldn’t quite get a handle on.  “Is it really that important to you?”

Dick nodded, and he felt like the weight of all their interactions pressed against his shoulders.  “Yeah, Lew, it is.”

Nix swallowed thickly and nodded.  “Then I’ll stay.”

Dick nudged Nix’s foot under the table.  “Thanks, Nix.”

Nix pulled his foot back and grinned weakly at Dick.  “Anytime.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Comments are love, guys! Please let me know what you think (even if it's just to yell at me for this super awkward angst lol) And feel free to come say hi on tumblr. I'm @realhunterswearplaid.


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